Joel and I filled the tank for the van, and hit the road. Originally Toyama and Nagoya used to take a lot longer by car, but just June of this year they had finished a new highway that went straight through the mountains that separated the two cities. Our hearts were filled both with excitement and nervousness as we looked around noticing that our journey was coming to an end. We had been away for 9 weeks, people and the scenery had changed as well as us, and we weren’t sure how the it was going to mix.
One of the many tunnels on the Tokai-Hokuriku Highway, some of them up to 13-14kms long. Definitely not a place to try holding your breath for a wish.
The van was gliding on the paved roads eating into the KM that separated us from home. We were pumping music through the iPod when suddenly the music started sounding distorted, and our battery light was on, we were losing power. Our moods suddenly sank 28km outside of Nagoya and yet another problem.
We opened the engine compartment and found that our alternator belt had slipped off, luckily it was still in one piece and we just had to re-tighten a few things and we were up and running. The last of the set backs, we crossed our fingers and kept going.
